


we got lost in translation (maybe I asked for too much)

by withlovegilbert (rebelarkey)



Series: A soft heart and a sharp pen [2]
Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Anne and Gilbert are idiots, Autumn Aesthetic, Because I wouldn't do that to you guys, Exes, F/M, Happy Ending, Implied Cheating, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Reunited and It Feels So Good, letter writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25076281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelarkey/pseuds/withlovegilbert
Summary: but this thing was a masterpiece before you tore it all upAnne gets a letter from her ex-boyfriend Gilbert Blythe asking to meet up.--Inspired by Taylor Swift's 'All Too Well'Written for the Shirbert Song Project 2020
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Series: A soft heart and a sharp pen [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1717303
Comments: 12
Kudos: 73
Collections: Shirbert Song Project 2020





	we got lost in translation (maybe I asked for too much)

**Author's Note:**

> Biggest thanks to @marble-halls /aceofsparrows for your betaing skills. Go check out her fic!
> 
> See you on the other side.

_Maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much_  
_But maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up_  
_Running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well_

_And you call me up again just to break me like a promise_  
_So casually cruel in the name of being honest_  
_I'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here_  
_'Cause I remember it all, all, all too well_

_~ PRESENT ~_

Anne stumbled into her apartment, carrying a precarious tower of personal items. Between the mail, her purse and a cup of pumpkin spice flavoured coffee, her hands were full. Huffing she set down her burden, glaring at the large package that had caused all her annoyance of the past few minutes. She’d expected a few pieces of mail, not a fairly good sized package. 

As far as Anne knew, she hadn't ordered anything. No online purchases, no midnight impulse shopping, no birthdays or holidays that warranted a package. Just a normal, boring week in October. But written on the box was her name _Miss Anne Shirley-Cuthbert_ in nice calligraphy. Handwriting that was vaguely familiar, a ghost of remembrance hovering in the background. She _knew_ that handwriting. 

Carefully she cut open the box, hoping it wasn’t a bomb or a nasty surprise waiting to scare her. Anne lifted the tabs, moved the bubble wrap, set aside an envelope with her name written on it in that same familiar cursive, and removed the tissue paper wrapped around its precious cargo. As the paper fell away, it revealed a blue and red and white knitted scarf. 

_Her_ scarf.

Marilla had made it for her the last year of high school and she’d taken it with her to college. Wearing it around Queen’s campus during the brisk autumn wind, bundling it around her neck to wade off the winter’s chill, the feeling of _home_ and _belonging_ and _friendship_ weaved between its threads. The bittersweet tang of regret. 

The last time she had her scarf was when she was with _him._

Gilbert Blythe. 

Anne inhaled the sweet musk of her scarf one last time before turning to the envelope. The reason it was vaguely familiar was because old-fashioned letters were their thing. Or it had been. Before it had all fallen apart. 

_~FIVE YEARS AGO ~_

“I leave for medical school in two days Anne-”

“I know.”

“-and you are moving to Summerside-”

“I know.”

“--which means we don’t have a lot of time left--”

“I know Gil!” Anne couldn’t take it anymore, standing up from where they’d been sitting on the hill together. The afternoon had been pleasant, with them romping all over the pastoral village. Their usual haunts of walking lover’s lane, rowing in the lake of shining waters, and scavenging for mushrooms in the Haunted Woods. Which left gazing over the tops of the trees down the hill and hearing the crash of waves in the distance and knowing, despite desperately ignoring it, that all this would change. Her days of childhood were fading as the dewy mist of morning and bearing bay to the harsh light of reality. 

She, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, had grown up. 

“I know. Everything is about to change so please! Can we just pretend for a little longer that life isn’t a bitch that tears everything I love to pieces?” 

Anne was scared. She was going to miss her rival turned best friend, the boy who’d been by her side, pushing her and testing her and supporting her all through the past few years. He’d been there when Matthew had died. When she won the Avery Scholarship her senior year. When Diana had studied abroad in France and decided to stay and not return to Avonlea. Through it all, Gilbert had been her rock and pillar, the best person to lean on when she wasn’t strong enough to stand. 

She didn’t want to lose him. 

GIlbert leaned his toned tanned arms against his legs, giving her that look that drove her crazy. The Anne-is-being-ridiculous-again look. 

“Would you let me finish?” 

Grumpily, Anne crossed her arms, leveling him a look of her own. 

“Fine.” 

He motioned with his head to her vacated spot. 

Anne sat in her previous position with a huff, cross legged, her knee brushing Gilbert’s leg. 

“As I was saying, we don’t have a lot of time left to figure out how we’re going to keep in touch.”

“What do you mean?”

“Anne, you’re notoriously bad at texting. The most your messages say is ‘meet me at our usual spot’ or ‘Mary’s Diner in ten’. You prefer face to face contact the most which would make FaceTime ideal. Except wait, you don’t have an iphone.”

“I don’t like the company’s values.” She defended herself. 

“Which is fine, but it rules out that option. Neither of us like to call…”

Anne uncrossed her arms, finally seeing what Gilbert was getting at. “We do all our conversations in person but that won’t be possible with us 1000 miles away from each other. Perhaps email?”

“Nuh-uh, too impersonal. Email is… business-like? It what I do when I want to contact my professors.” 

“Or job recruiters.”

“You don’t have Social Media…“

“Social Media is the vain attempt to display yourself as equal to or above your peers in a selfish way of--” 

“...because you hate it. Skype?”

“Don’t you remember? I got locked out because I don’t remember my password and it won’t let me log in until i do a push notification to my phone but that was with my old phone number and I changed my phone number so the two-factor authentication isn’t working--”

“Okay okay that won’t work either. I don’t know, Anne. But I can’t just… not talk to you anymore.” Gilbert laid his hand over hers. “I care about you too much.” 

He’d been doing that lately, making subtle hints, gestures, looks that were a little more than friendly. They sent shivers down her spine; Anne didn’t know if those were good or bad. But the definitely were uncomfortable. 

She pulled away, letting his hand fall to the ground. 

“No, I couldn’t do it without you Gilbert. There has to be…. Oh! I’ve got it. You’re going to laugh but it’s perfect!”

“Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess?” 

“We’ll write letters!”

“Letters?”

“You know, the old fashioned communication that has been around for thousands of years before telephones and email and skype?”

“But won’t that be like email?” 

“Noo it’s more personal! Getting letters nowadays is rare and requires more effort! An email is instantaneous and used for business purposes. A letter from a friend… well it’s romantic!”Anne paused, slightly horrified before rushing to fix her faux pas. “Platonically of course.”

Gilbert sighed, the sound cutting straight to her heart. He stood up, gazing towards the ocean, his back towards her. 

“Anne… what do you want?”

“I don’t understand?” 

“What do you want from me? You send so many mixed signals it gives me whiplash! I say something or do something and you pull away, but then you say or do something that gives me hope… Am I your friend?

“Ye-”

“Or am I something more to you, more than just your best friend?” He whirled around, his hazel eyes ablaze with passion. 

“I-I uh--”

“Because you suggest to me that we write letters to each other while apart because it’s _romantic_. Yet, make no mention of what happens afterward. We just keep in touch? You’re moving to Summerside, Anne, on the other side of the Island, as an English teacher. I’m going to medical school, then afterwards a residency. We can’t keep existing like this, halfway inbetween something and nothing. Either we do this, all in, or we don’t.”

“You’re my best friend Gil.”

“And that’s all I’ll ever be, I see.” 

“NO! You don’t see!” Anne stood up, marched right up to him and pushed him back, expelling some of the frustration and fear building up inside. “I don’t want to lose you!”

“Anne, you are losing me, don’t you see? We either make this permanent or go our separate ways. I won’t be coming back to Avonlea.”

Anne, stubborn, refused to listen. “Diana and I are friends still, even though she lives in Paris. How is that different than us? We’ll take our paths wherever they lead, and stay in touch. Through letters. How are you not understanding this? We stay friends.” 

Gilbert's hands caught her wrists holding them to his chest. “It’s not enough for me anymore Anne. Friendship pales in comparison to what I see for us, in what I feel for you. I love you. And I know that you care about me.”

“But what happens if it doesn’t work?” Anne bit her lip, not looking at him. 

“What do you mean?” 

“What if it doesn’t work?! What if we get into a relationship and find that all we do is bicker, we hate each other and we break up. Gil… I can’t lose you. I’d rather have you as my best friend than risk the chance of not having you at all.” Her voice broke on the last word, her chest heaving as tears slipped down her face. She felt she was standing at a precipice, with a choice to fall now or leave it all behind. 

“I don’t believe that. Anne, we’ve come through the worst already. There is no way that will happen. Do you trust me?” 

Anne looked up into the steady hazel eyes, and took a flying leap. “Yes. Yes I do.” 

A beautiful smile graced his features and he leaned down and kissed her, long and hard.

_~ PRESENT ~_

Anne opened the letter slowly, not knowing what it would say. The last time she’d heard from Gilbert was over three years ago, before everything. Why he would be reaching out now, after so long, had her puzzled. 

_Dear Anne,_

_I know I’m the last person you want to hear from but I feel terrible about the way we left things. I kept meaning to write you. I sent several letters to Green Gables before I found out through Ruby Gillis that Marilla sold the place and that’s why my letters were returned. Not just you sent them back to me, which I will admit was my first thought._

_Then I found your scarf today in the back of a rarely used drawer. I forgot that I had it; I know how much it means to you. So I took this opportunity to write you._

_I had to hunt down your address through Diana. Please don’t be mad at her._

_I graduated medical school last year, and am transferring my residency to Charlottetown to be closer to home. We were friends once, Anne, before everything happened. And what did happen Anne? To this day I have no idea what I did wrong. Whatever it was I hope you will forgive me. Can we be friends again? Can we at least try? To be truly honest, I’ve missed you terribly. That day, I lost my best friend as well as the love of my life._

_If you want to try again, I will be having a cup of tea at your favorite place, just across from Victoria Park at 9am on Saturday. You are welcome to join me._

_I understand if this is too forward and you rip up this letter and throw it to the wind. But I hope you won't._

_All the best,_

_Gilbert Blythe_

* * *

Anne entered the coffee shop, her long lost scarf wrapped around her neck. The tinkling of the bell had her teeth on edge. She glanced around the coffee shop and spied the recognizable dark head of curls sitting in the corner. 

Inhaling a breath of courage, bracing herself against the pain she made her way to where he was seated. _You can always walk away. If it gets too hard you can just walk away._ Anne reminded herself. Before she was ready, she was at his side. 

“Gilbert Blythe?” She questioned, half hoping that she’d be mistaken and it was a stranger. Instead, the once beloved hazel eyes of her childhood and former lover hit her like a truck. “Gil.” Emotion tickled her throat but she swallowed it down. 

He stood up, ever the gentleman. “Anne...hi.” He looked down, fidgeting with his foot. His hand rubbed the back of his neck, a tick she once found endearing. “I didn’t think you would come.” 

“You asked me to. And despite...everything... It’s hard to say no to you, Gilbert Blythe.” 

A crooked smile appeared and disappeared almost as quickly. He picked up two to-go cups. “Chocolate Cappuccino with extra cream?” 

“You remembered! Oh this almost makes it worth hearing what you have to say.” She inhaled the sweet aroma, distinctly appreciating having something to focus her nervous energy on. 

“Shall we?” He gestured across the street to the park. 

Nostalgia creeped up her back and swallowed her whole upon trodding upon long loved trails. The two of them had wandered them many times during their time at Queens, laughing and talking and enjoying each other’s company. A stark contrast to their present somber sobriety. 

His pace matched her and the only sound was of their breathing and the occasional sip of liquid. After fifteen minutes they reached the beach and still nothing had been discussed. Finally fed up with his resolute silence, she hacked it in pieces. He was once her best friend before he so cruelly broke her heart.

“Remember that time we danced in the dark kitchen? You kept tripping so I opened the fridge so we could see. Bash came down and thought we were looking for midnight snacks.” 

“I remember.” 

“Or that roadtrip we took after your senior year?” 

A small smile bloomed on his face. “That was when I almost missed that red light and slammed on the breaks. You ended up in the emergency room. “

“I needed three stitches in my chin.” 

“That was the day I decided to become a doctor.” They grew somber as reality brought them back from memory lane.

“Why did you ask me here, Gilbert? While I don’t mind walking down memory lane with you, the past has been left undisturbed for long enough. But I don’t want to go too far down it.”

“Why not Anne?”

“It hurts too much. Plus it was so long ago.”

“It was yesterday.” The rawness in his voice hits her low pricking the break in her heart. His grip tightened on his cup, indenting the styrofoam. “I have asked myself over and over what went wrong. Re-read every letter forwards and backwards looking for a clue or a sign that I may have missed. Step by step walk through that last week. Deciphering inbetween the lines for the words that said ‘I hate you’ instead of ‘I love you’. You know what I found Anne? Nothing. So please tell me what I did or what I said for you to hate me so.” 

“I, hate you? No it was you, you stopped loving me.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Is it? Is that why you stopped writing?” 

_~ THREE YEARS AGO ~_

Gilbert flipped through the letters in his hand. “Roy….Roy Gardner… Royal… Does she know no one else?” He shoved them into his messenger bag, frustrated. 

The last year had been bearable, with a letter from Anne about a week. It was hard, but they got through it. The summer break had been blissful when Anne had come down from Summerside and stayed with him in Kingsport, where he’d chosen to take summer classes to try and complete his studies sooner. Those summer days had been the best of his life. 

Now, six weeks into autumn and all Anne could talk about was Roy Gardner. He was the newest teacher to come onboard at Summerside High, and apparently, had hit it off real well. Not that Anne couldn’t have male friends of course she could. And Gilbert wasn’t jealous. He wasn’t! Okay, he was a little but mostly because Roy was up there in Summerside with Anne and he was stuck in Kingsport.. 

Alright, Gilbert was very jealous. 

The way Anne described Roy as ‘lover of poetry and the rain.’ set Gilbert’s teeth on edge. She wrote about their long discussions of philosophy and imaginatio and stopped asking Gilbert for his opinion. 

Roy was a true kindred spirit of her soul, she wrote. But Gilbert had that metallic taste in his mouth of the green-eyed monster, the same he’d get back in high school when Anne would describe, in painstaking detail, of her perfect romantic man and knew he’d never measure up. 

Roy was her tailor-made fantasy hero come to life and Gilbert knew it. In the face of such perfection, why would she ever love Gilbert? Anne deserved the world. She didn’t need Gilbert, didn’t need her small town boyfriend holding her back.

So he stopped writing. 

He made excuses in his head saying that he was too busy or that he would answer her letters tomorrow or his life was boring and would be of no interest to her. But he knew deep down that Anne deserved better than him and he refused to stand in the way of the man she’d always dreamed of. The man that wasn’t him. 

So when his lab partner, Winnifred, asked him out to coffee, he took one long look at the letters in his bag, and told her yes. The guilt he stuffed in with the abandoned pieces of papers on his bag. 

_~ PRESENT ~_

Anne was flabbergasted. “Why….I can’t believe you! Roy? You didn't write because you thought I deserved better? I got one letter from you Gil! I couldn’t talk to you about anything you were doing because you didn’t write!” She turned away from him, sitting down on a nearby bench. He sat down next to her.

“I know that now! But I always assumed that you sent that letter because of Roy. You’d fallen in love with him instead.”

Anne felt the need to defend herself. “Roy was just… okay I’ll admit he was handsome. And charming. And we had a lot in common! But Gilbert, I needed a friend! I was lonely. I had no one I could really talk to until Roy came like an answer from heaven. You were being distant, you stopped writing and I broke down. I needed to talk to you and you weren’t answering my letters. So I came to see you.” 

_~ THREE YEARS AGO ~_

One letter in six weeks. One blasted single letter in almost 45 days. The next time she saw Gilbert Blythe she would strangle him. 

Of course he’d be busy. This semester would be harder than the last two she knew this. But she just really wanted her boyfriend right now. A student had made fun of her red hair, calling her ‘soulless’ and she’d almost broken down in class then and there. She’d been missing him so much and that one callback to their first meeting tipped the scale. 

She really really missed her best friend. 

And he was ignoring her. 

Anne couldn’t deny it, Gilbert was ignoring her. Two months had gone by since she’d seen him last. Heard from him once. There was no way that he could just let 12 letters slip his mind when she’d faithfully wrote him twice a week. 

Roy had found her in tears in the break room and he encouraged her to reach out to him. 

“But he won’t answer my letters.” She’d complained. 

“Then call him, Anne. No, no excuses. This is an emergency, you need to know where he stands right now. Short of driving to Kingsport to see him face to face you need to call him.”

Anne dried her tears and kissed Roy on the cheek. “You, Roy Gardner, are brilliant. I’ll go see him.” 

“Anne, wait! It’s a three hour drive! Let me drive you. Just in case.” 

Anne nodded. “Just in case.” 

* * *

Anne knocked on Gilbert’s door, then started pacing. After two passes she knocked again. She pulled her scarf from her neck wringing it in her hands. On the third, she started hollering. “Gilbert Blythe! I know you’re in there!” 

The door opened. “Final...ly” She was startled at the appearance of a stunning, tall blonde, wrapped in what suspiciously looked like Gilbert’s robe. Her scarf fluttered to the ground unnoticed.

“May I help you?” She even had an accent. 

“Is Gilbert here? I really want to talk to him.” 

“Oh he’s in the shower currently. We had a little...accident…” She glanced over her shoulder and Anne followed her gaze. There on the floor was a pile of clothes and was that a bra hanging from the spindle back chair? The sinking in her stomach told her yes.

“I’m Winnifred bytheway. And you are?” The blonde--Winnifred-- held out her hand. 

“Anne. With an E.”

“I’d invite you in but we made a little bit of a mess. Perhaps come back later? I’ll tell Gilbert you dropped by.” 

“No, that’s alright. It looks like you’re very busy here, I’m sorry to interrupt.Bye”

Anne whirled around and ran back to the car, slamming the door. 

“I’m so stupid! So so stupid! I should’ve known that’s why he’s been silent. I know I’m not that pretty and why would he want a homegrown girl next door when he could have...that? I’m just a hanger on from his past, an ugly red-headed orphan!” 

Roy turned to her, angry. “I won’t let you speak about my friend that way, Anne Shirely. She is not ugly and not stupid. She’s a brilliant beautiful girl and if he can’t see that, see you for the treasure you are, then he’s the idiotic one.” 

Roy put the car in drive and drove back to Prince Edward Island. Anne cried all the way home, alternating between gasping sobs, silent tears, and blank staring out the window. Through it all, she tried to ignore the voice in the back that sounded a lot like Josie Pye crowing ‘you were right, the friendship was a masterpiece and the romance a disaster. You knew you would lose him the moment you changed your relationship, but did you listen to me? No. No you did not. And look where that got you Anne Shirely? Nowhere.’

When she got home, late at night by the light of a lamp, Anne Shirely Cuthbert penned her last and final letter to Gilbert Blythe. 

_~ PRESENT ~_

“You thought I cheated on you?” 

“What was I supposed to think, Gilbert? You weren’t answering my letters. I showed up at your door and a gorgeous woman in your clothes answered the door. It smacks of infidelity.” 

“She was my lab partner! We went out to coffee to discuss the recent lecture then went back to my apartment to conduct the experiment for our homework and it got messy. So I let her shower first and borrow some clothes. What was I supposed to do-- make her go home covered in strawberry puree?”

“Of course not!” 

“Then what did you want me to do? Why didn’t you just talk to me?”

“I tried, Gil! Over and over I tried. I called you once but it went straight to voicemail and you didn’t have the mailbox set up. I wrote you letter after letter about my life hoping to hell that you still loved me. And then I show up at your door and a beautiful woman in your clothes confirms my worst fears.” 

He passed a hand over his face. “Meanwhile I believe that you were moving on and found love in Prince Charming himself.” 

“Oh Gil…” Her hand reached up and took one of his. “I just wanted you.” 

The raw pain in his eyes echoed the feeling in her heart. If they had just communicated better, the last three years of heartbreak could have been avoided.

“Will you forgive me Anne? For being so knuckle-brained?”

“When are you not knuckled- brained?” She couldn’t resist teasing him, their old comradery sparking as old wounds finally started to heal.

“Hey!” 

Anne straighten up with her best schoolmarm impression.“I will forgive you, Gilbert Blythe on one condition and one condition only.” 

“Name it.”

She could feel her lips twitching as she tried to maintain a straight face. “You allow me to push you into Barry’s Pond.” 

Gilbert guffawed loudly, before clamping a hand over his mouth. “Deal,” he managed. 

Anne couldn’t help but join in his laughter. After a few moments of shared gaiety, they both quieted to comfortable contentment.

“Oh I have missed you Gil. So much.” She leaned into his side, staring out across the rippling waves of the harbor. She could feel his gaze burning into her face.

“Probably as much as I’ve missed you, Carrots. “ Anne smacked him, turning to face him. She wasn’t expecting him to be as close as he was, but following an impulse she kissed him chastely. 

As she pulled back he followed her, melding them into something deeper. They’d always worked well together, a carefully choreographed dance that came naturally, without words. Their souls were one and the same, both passionate and driven and competitive. Together they could change the world. 

But Anne knew, all too well, that trusting too much in unsaid words had caused the pain in the first place. 

She broke away and put a hand up to prevent him from kissing her again. “Promise me, Gil, that we will never again take us for granted. I don’t think I could handle us breaking up again.” 

“I promise. You, Anne Shirely Cuthbert, are the only girl for me. And no more long distance. History has proved that our miscommunication only gets compounded by the distance.”

“No more letters, either.” She gave him a stern look. “They’ve brought only heartache.” 

“Well, you did get your tragical romance after all.” 

Anne shook her head. “Everything that I thought I wanted in high school has turned out to be false. Tragical romances are romantic at all. They’re just full of pain.” 

Gilbert tucked her into his side, bundling her up against his warmth. “I couldn’t agree more.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So I never know what to say in author's notes. I usually have a whole bunch of thoughts while writing but when it comes time to post, all the A/N stuff just vanishes. This was written in the last two days (what can I say I procrastinate) and it's been a flurry of writing headaches, family and all over angst. Guys Gilbert made me cry! Anne too. I mean this was just an emotional rollercoaster. Probably not my best writing but I hope you enjoyed it. 
> 
> A fic I highly recommend is [my girlfriend, who lives in canada](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23101663/chapters/55270594) is by botanyclub
> 
> I also recommend reading all the other fics in the Shirbert Song Project 2020 collection. It's all inspired by tswift music, but it's still shirbert! 
> 
> Visit me on tumblr @withlovegilbert.


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